A Few Thoughts on the Nexus One
There will be many posts focusing on the look, feel, and features of the Nexus One, so I'm going to focus on what Android's latest incarnation says about the competitive landscape - what I've elsewhere called the war for the web. Android vs. iPhone is one important front in that “war.”
Context & Ripple Effects
The Nexus One lands after eighteen months of buildup that ran from skepticism to vindication: Gizmodo's 2008 bet that Android would soon kick ass, PC World's December question of whether the phone was a world-changer or just a bad idea, and now same-day reviews like Engadget's treating it as shipping hardware rather than rumor. O'Reilly's framing skips the spec-sheet fight entirely and reads the device as one front in what he has called the war for the web.
That framing has fresh evidence behind it: a survey the day before showed Android finally roiling the smartphone market after a slow start, and Distimo's mid-2009 data had already shown Android users skewing toward tools and applications over other categories. The open-platform consequences were visible too — an unrestricted adult app store launched for Android in November, the kind of catalog Apple's curated store does not permit.
First-order effects
- Google is now selling a phone directly to consumers over the web rather than through carrier retail — a distribution move that pits Google against the channel its own Android partners rely on, with HTC building the hardware.
- Apple faces a competitor whose differentiator is not the device but the platform rules: unrestricted apps versus App Store curation, a contrast the November launch of an Android adult app store made concrete.
Second-order effects
- Carrier control of handset distribution weakens if web-direct sales work at scale, forcing operators and OEM partners alike to compete on service and price rather than shelf placement.
- Developer economics shift toward whichever platform matches usage patterns — Distimo's finding that Android buyers favor tools and applications pressures Apple to keep its own catalog attractive beyond consumer categories.
Third-order effects
- The competitive axis moves from individual device features to whole ecosystem governance — content restrictions, app approval, open source health — where the unresolved critique of Android's model matters as much as its market momentum.
- If web companies treat phones primarily as access points to their services, handset makers risk commoditization while the durable value accrues to whoever controls the software layer above the device.
The trend: Smartphones are becoming the decisive battleground in a broader war among web platforms, where openness and curation — not hardware specs — define the contest between Android and iPhone.